


The Last Great Dynasty

by Primarina (PastelBrachypelma)



Series: In Which the Author Ignores Sly 4 Completely [3]
Category: Sly Cooper (Video Games)
Genre: Angst, Eating, Eating Disorder Not Otherwise Specified, Eating Disorders, F/M, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, On the Run, Panic Attacks, Relationship Discussions, Vacation
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-09
Updated: 2020-11-08
Packaged: 2021-03-09 07:19:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,978
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27467074
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PastelBrachypelma/pseuds/Primarina
Summary: "I had a marvelous time ruining everything."i.e. Sly has a panic attack, the gang tries to vacation, and the police force just won't leave them alone. PLEASE MIND THE TAGS!
Relationships: Bentley & Sly Cooper & Murray, Bentley (Sly Cooper) & Original Character(s), Murray (Sly Cooper) & Original Character(s), Murray (Sly Cooper)/Original Character(s), Sly Cooper & Original Character(s), Sly Cooper/Carmelita Fox
Series: In Which the Author Ignores Sly 4 Completely [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1992913
Comments: 2
Kudos: 5





	The Last Great Dynasty

“-ly!”

The older raccoon shifted, burrowing into Carmelita’s chest, flicking the offending ear in irritation. 

“Sly! Wake up!”

“Mmph,” Sly grunted, reluctantly sitting up in bed to massage his ear, sliding the comm link into a more convenient spot. The cool air sliding in under their blanket woke Carmelita as well, and Sly cursed to himself. 

“What?” He hissed. “I was sleeping!”

“I could tell,” Bentley said smartly. “It’s your turn to drive, asshole. I let you have a few extra hours out of common courtesy, but I’m starting to get too tired to see the road.”

“Okay, fair point,” Sly said, climbing out of bed and stepping into a pair of sweatpants and a sweatshirt as Carmelita gave him a quizzical look. “Pull this bad boy over, and I’ll make my way to the cabin.”

“Roger that,” Bentley said, turning off the comm link with a soft click. 

“Waz goin on?” Carmelita asked, rubbing her eyes sleepily. 

“My turn to drive, chérie,” Sly leaned over, kissing her forehead. He glanced over at the clock on the wall, squinting as his night vision kicked in. “I think we’ll reach the coast by sun-up unless there’s traffic.” He smiled fondly, running a hand through her hair. “Go back to sleep. I’ll come cuddle in a few hours.”

“No, no, I can get up with you,” Carmelita got out of bed, stretching. “I’ll navigate for you. I could honestly use some breakfast, anyway,” 

Sly nodded, stretching with a grunt and scratching an itch on his lower back that made his left leg jerk. “I’d appreciate that,” he said. “C’mon, we gotta get to the cabin.” 

A few hours before they’d left, Bentley and Tom had managed to turn two RVs, one a much larger living space and a second one more like a smaller trailer, into a sizable camper system. The large RV was where the “cabin” was for driving, though the van was also attached to the back of the second RV, in case there weren’t any diesel stations. Tom, Bentley, Sly, and Murray were all on driving shifts as they made their way from Paris to Italy. The RVs were narrow, but still managed to have a sizable space, especially because the larger one was more of a tour bus kind of situation, making it wider and more spacious. But they’d all be grateful to get to a safe house. It was hard traveling in cramped quarters. 

Most of the bedrooms were in the trailer. They were small, mostly little bunks, except for three that were actual rooms; Bentley’s, Murray and Tom’s, and Kennedy’s. Sly and Carmelita made their way to the door of the trailer and Sly opened it, sighing into the wind. 

“Ah...fresh air.”

“Sly,” Carmelita warned, “what are you doing?”

Sly stretched his arms up over his head with a grin. “Gotta get to the cabin somehow!” He giggled at his partner’s glare. “At least we’re not moving anymore.” 

It was true; Bentley had successfully pulled over. 

Carmelita groaned. “You’re going to climb up the side and walk across it.” 

“Yep,” Sly popped the “p,” leaping onto one of the bars along the side and carefully climbing hand over hand to get up. 

Carmelita rolled her eyes, getting a head start before jumping up and grabbing onto the side. “I’m almost too old for this,” she admitted as Sly pulled her up to the top of the camper. 

“Age is just a number,” Sly pointed out, grinning. Then, he was off, carefully balancing himself as he made his way across the top of the camper. 

“You’re still insane, ringtail,” Carmelita carefully made her way after Sly; she was out of practice keeping up with her favorite thief, and wobbled a bit when the wind struck her. Besides, she didn’t have the benefit of ninja training like Sly did. 

The raccoon climbed down the side of the RV and landed inelegantly on the ground with a grunt. “Landing…” he grumbled as Carmelita smartly found an emergency ladder and used that to make a more graceful descent. “How is landing the hardest part?!”

“But ‘age is just a number’, right Sly?” Carmelita teased, her tail twitching with pride as she walked over to the cabin.

Sly’s ears flattened as he darted to catch up with her. “I’m just outta practice,” he claimed.

“Suuurreee, cariño,” Carmelita snorted as Bentley opened the cabin door.

“Oh, well,” Bentley cooed, “I didn’t expect to see both of you...a package deal, I suppose?”

Sly snorted, swatting at Bentley with his tail. “Shaddup. The whole world knows I’m whipped. Thing is, I don’t give a damn.”

“I never said you did,” Bentley replied, yawning. “All right, I gotta hit the hay. I put the seat back in place for you and took out all my adjusters, so you should be good to go.” He tilted his head in Carmelita’s direction. “It might be helpful to have more drivers. Would you like to learn?”

“Sure,” Carmelita replied. “I haven’t driven anything larger than a police cruiser, but I bet I could learn.”

“Excellent. Murray can teach you once we reach the coast.” Bentley yawned again, and Sly took the keys from him.

“Get some sleep, pal,” Sly squeezed his shoulder. “We’ll take it from here.”

Bentley nodded and slowly made his way back to the bedrooms.

Sly climbed into the driver’s seat while Carmelita took the passenger’s. The cabin was connected to the rest of the RV by a little sliding door, and Carmelita peeked out of it to watch the security cams, making sure Bentley got back to the trailer safely and keeping an eye out for any cop cars that might be out patrolling while Sly took a look at the navigation system.

“Just as I thought,” he confirmed as Carmelita gave him the all-clear. “We should reach the coast by dawn.” He turned the key and the engine revved to life, humming underneath them like a friendly beast. Sly flicked the turn signal and then carefully turned the large steering wheel back onto the road.

There weren’t many cars at this hour, and the headlights barely made a dent in the early morning mist, but it was peaceful. There would be a while yet before real navigation was needed, as mostly a few hours of highway stretched on ahead of them. Bentley’s route had been chosen to avoid traffic and civilization, so this stretch of highway wasn’t as well-lit, and Carmelita realized that these were local roads, parallel to residential areas.

Sly’s Italian punctuation and spoken grammar weren’t the best, but he could read the street names just fine. Carmelita had assumed that Sly was a polyglot, just as she herself was, but he seemed to have more of a head for language than she did. She only had to have a passing familiarity with languages in countries she didn’t live in, but Sly seemed comfortable reading Italian, if not speaking it.

“When did you learn Italian?” She asked.

Sly smiled, not taking his eyes off the road. “The Venice job. My accent was barely passable and my dialect was all over the place. But Italian is a Romance language, so I picked it up pretty easily.”

“Right, that’s how I picked up French,” Carmelita nodded. “I’m just rusty, I guess.”

“You’ll have a chance to practice,” Sly said, a bit mournful. “You know what Rover’s like. We’ll be running for a long time.”

Carmelita looked at the bandages on Sly’s wrists and winced. Rover had been so rough...she’d never expected that from her former colleague, though she couldn’t say it surprised her. She was just disappointed that someone on the side of the Law would want to hurt someone. Though, she supposed, she’d gone up against Neyla and the Contessa. She should be jaded by now.

“Your thoughts are so loud,” Sly sat back in the seat, uncurling his tail so he could rest it against hers. “What’s the matter?”

“I’m thinking about Rover,” she frowned, crossing her arms over her chest. She was regretting not putting a sweatshirt on; it was cold up here. “I mean...I’m not surprised he went from asshole straight to dirty officer, not necessarily. I just…” she sighed. “I just don’t understand. Cops are meant to help people, and yet they do more harm than good.”

“You did a lot of good, you know,” Sly pointed out, bronze eyes finding hers for a moment before concentrating on the road again. “You put many of the villains the gang and I went up against behind bars.”

“And Rayleigh got a good lawyer and only got three years and probation,” Carmelita growled. “And Octavio was out in two.”

“And Dimitri and the Panda King got out on good behavior,” Sly shrugged. “Justice doesn’t mean anything when you have money or prominence.”

The cabin was silent for a while, until Carmelita’s stomach growled.

Sly chuckled, reaching over to squeeze her thigh. “Go on, ma chérie. I should’ve known why you were so moody.” He braked before a red light, stretching until his back cracked. “You wanted breakfast, anyway.”

“Only if you’ll eat with me,” Carmelita said. “From what you told me, it seems like you could use it.”

Sly’s ears flattened against his head. “Weeelll, I’m not really hungry, but,” he shrugged, his ears perking up again, “suppose I could eat, if you’re offering.”

“I’m willing to bet you’ll be hungry when you smell it,” Carmelita got up, nuzzling against Sly’s cheek, delighting at the chittering noise she got in response. “It’ll make me feel better to see you eating, anyway.”

“Happy to oblige, chérie,” Sly replied.

~

As Carmelita predicted, her partner perked up at the smell of food. She was learning something new about him all the time, which should seem strange to her after 18-odd years of living together under the same roof and raiding the twins together. Perhaps her first lesson had been that Sly hid things very well, including what he really felt or desired. Or…

She wondered if Sly was relapsing. This was the perfect scenario for it, after all. The stress of being on the run, coupled with hyperfixations and a need to stay fit and lean...she was surprised he hadn’t been asking if there was a scale in the bathrooms. (There wasn’t; she knew because she’d checked and double checked.)

Maybe it had all started that day, she thought. Rover and his cronies had refused to feed him, and to boot, he was ripped out of a hyperfixated state. Sly had to deal with the stress of being arrested, of having no contact with anyone, of being isolated from the plan, since he had no way of knowing which one of Bentley’s jobs they were actually pulling off, and the fire had been spontaneous, anyway, when Sly hadn’t been transferred right away. That day had felt like whiplash...and Sly was hurting.

Carmelita had made egg sandwiches for them both, but while she’d been nibbling on hers as she thought, Sly had set his aside and kept driving. The vixen cleared her throat. “Sly. Sly!”

“Huh?” Sly glanced over towards her. “What?”

“Breakfast,” Carmelita gestured to the sandwich. “Do you want it?”

Sly’s tail twitched. “I’ll get to it, chérie. Just as soon as we get to the house.”

“Sly, it’ll be cold by then,” Carmelita growled. “It’s hours until dawn!”

“Mm,” Sly tilted his head curiously. “Might be good cold, y’know. Little bit of extra pepper, a few egg shells…”

“Gross,” Carmelita swatted him with her tail.

Sly laughed. “Raccoon,” he said by way of explanation. “‘Gross’ is kinda...what is it that Selena and Carson are always saying? “On brand”?” He snorted, curling a hand around his waist and fiddling with the half done up zipper sitting just below his ribcage.

The vixen sighed. “Would you rather something else? Something sweeter? You did promise me you’d eat.”

“Did I?” The raccoon clicked his tongue. “I mean, it’s not gonna kill me, so…” He lifted the sandwich and took a bite, chewing a little and then swallowing before putting it back down. “This is good. Thanks, Carmelita.”

Carmelita sighed. “Sly...are you relapsing?”

Sly hesitated, frowning, his tail twitching faster as the cogs in his brain turned. Carmelita had noticed as the years passed that Sly became more in-tune with how his body and mind worked together, and she was glad that she had recommended therapy. He was better at spotting the signs of a relapse or the beginnings of a panic attack, and was better at telling her, though he’d started to hide things from her again once the twins were born. “Maybe a bit,” he allowed, his ears swiveling. “It’s the hyperfixation stuff. And, honestly, I’m trying to keep myself together, but…” He gripped the wheel hard, trembling. “It’s...really hard to adjust to being on the run again after so long. And there’s so much more to worry about now.”

“But you’re not alone,” Carmelita pointed out softly, leaning into his space. “D’you believe that? Can you believe that?” She smiled as he turned briefly to look at her. “I’ll be right here beside you. And your brothers are here, too. You’re not alone, Sly.” She reached out to take his hand. “It’s okay to not be strong right now. You don’t have to pretend you are because you think that’s what I want. Okay?”

Sly took a deep breath, squeezing her hand. “Okay.”

“And...and I won’t force you,” she added, feeling guilty. “I know that might not help...I’m sorry if it’s only making things worse.”

“It doesn’t,” Sly promised. “Hell, it’s how Bentley and Murray got me back on track in the past! Fake it til you make it, something like that.” He dropped her hand only so he could make a more complex turn, then held onto her again. “It’s just so hard for me to feel out of control. If I get scared, then all I wanna do is restrict until I feel like I’m in control, and then I start feeling accomplished if my stomach is constantly growling, or if I feel faint, or if I skip meals.” He shuddered. “I don’t wanna get to that point. You noticed it last night; I’m bony!” He began to shake. “I...I…”

“Hold on,” Carmelita said. “Sly, don’t go nonverbal on me yet. Pull over.” She watched him intently until he did so, and then stood up. “Sit in the passenger seat,” she demanded. “Now.”

Sly, responding well to the authoritative tone, shakily stood up and collapsed in the passenger seat, still shaking. Carmelita sat in the driver’s seat and turned towards him, holding out her hands. “Here.”

Sly took both her hands and placed one against his nose while holding on tight to the other. He made eye contact with her, but his eyes were wide and wet.

“Okay,” Carmelita began, slowly, “if you can’t talk to me, that’s okay, but I need to ask you some questions. Squeeze one for yes,” she demonstrated, “and twice for no. Got it?”

A single squeeze.

“Okay. You’re nonverbal right now?”

Another squeeze.

“Are you worried about calories?”

Sly seemed to consider that one before squeezing twice.

Well. That was a good start. “Are you scared?”

One squeeze.

“Of me?”

Two squeezes.

“Of the others?”

One squeeze.

“You don’t want them to know you relapsed?”

Sly’s eyes brightened, and he smiled a little as he squeezed once.

“You’re worried they won’t get it?”

No.

“You don’t want to tell them?”

Yes.

“It’s your hero complex, isn’t it?”

Sly snorted, relaxing a bit. “Yeah,” he admitted after a minute. “Guess you could call it that. I shouldn’t ask for help, cause I know they’re going through it, too.”

“And yet,” Carmelita pointed out, “if your brothers came to you, if your kids came to you because they wanted to talk, you’d let them.”

“Yeah, of course.”

“So you think that doesn’t apply to you?”

Sly bit his tongue. He knew he’d been caught in a logical fallacy.

“Sly,” Carmelita said gently, “you deserve help, okay? You know , I think Tom was right. We all need a vacation.” She smiled, and Sly smiled, too. “So. Is it okay if I monitor you? Nobody else has to know if you don’t want them to.”

“Murray will know,” Sly took a deep breath. “He always knew when I was relapsing. But that’s okay.” He sighed. “It doesn’t make me weak.”

“Hell no,” Carmelita squeezed his hand. “You’ve been through so much, Sly. You’ve dealt with enough trauma for one lifetime, and somehow, you came out of that this kind and dedicated person, and an amazing father.”

Sly chuckled. “All right, enough flattery. I think I get the message.”

Carmelita pulled them to their feet and embraced him. “And I mean it. I won’t force you to eat, and I won’t make you eat certain portions or whatever.”

“That means a lot,” Sly embraced her in return, “but I might need a push.”

“Okay. But tell me “no”.” The vixen nuzzled her partner’s nose. “Promise?”

“I’ll use my safe word,” Sly teased. “What should it be? Paris?”

Carmelita lowered her eyelids, playing sexy. “If you like,” she smirked, pitching her voice low. Sly shuddered against her, and she nuzzled into his neck with a laugh. “Seriously, though. You okay to drive?”

Sly nodded. “I feel a bit shaky still, but yeah, I’ll be fine.” He glanced over at his sandwich. “I could do with a little less dust on my food.” 

Carmelita barked a laugh. “Get us back on coarse, and I’ll see if I can salvage it.”

Sly kissed her. “You’re an angel, ma chérie.”

“And you’re a devil, cariño,” Carmelita said, shoving him back into the driver’s seat as he cackled with glee.

**Author's Note:**

> Man, I really farmed up the angst for this one.
> 
> Take care of yourself. Hopefully, I'm not triggering anyone, but please go talk to someone if you are. The next chapter won't have so much eating disorder. angst. It'll be fluff because I need fluff after how Life has been, y'know?
> 
> ANYWAY, guess who listened to "last great american dynasty" on repeat today and got ideas for a fic? ;)


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